The God Particle

[Illusionist]

im currently reading the God Particle (the authors name escapes me at the moment) and the main focus is that in order to understand how the universe works, we must find the basic unit of matter, the a-tom. I dont see how finding this a-tom would be of any use, however. Atoms occurr naturally. Everything is made of atoms. If we take a house for instance, we say its made of bricks. But bricks dont occurr naturally. We make bricks, and we know bricks are made of atoms. Since atoms are naturally occurring building blocks, how do we know finding an even smaller particle would even be of any use?

[SwoleMan]

Um, we actually know of smaller particles than atoms already, and have done so for decades. They are called elementary particles. Some examples of elementary particles are electrons, positrons and quarks. As far as I know these are the basic units of matter.

[Illusionist]

i know there are smaller particles, but tis guy believes there is one basic particle of which all mater is made of.

This is one main reason for particle accelorators, yes?

[paradigm9]

the author is leon lederman, nobel laureate and particle physicist. the god particle is a force carrier, a gauge boson (called the Higgs boson named after peter higgs who postulated its existence), that is responsible for giving everything mass. understanding how and why things have mass and some things dont have mass would be of monumental importance.

great book...he's a really good writer and uses humor to gloss over complex topics

[BlakeEM]

i know there are smaller particles, but tis guy believes there is one basic particle of which all mater is made of.

This is one main reason for particle accelorators, yes?

Like what are atoms made out of and what are those made out of and at one point you reach a particle that makes up everything?

It's interesting, never heard that before. Seeing as "smallness" is infinite (I can’t see why it’s not?), I don't see how there can be such a thing because there is always something infinitely smaller right? Then again maybe matter has a limit on how small it can be? I guess that particle can’t be cut in half?

~Blake

[BlakeEM]

the author is leon lederman, nobel laureate and particle physicist. the god particle is a force carrier, a gauge boson (called the Higgs boson named after peter higgs who postulated its existence), that is responsible for giving everything mass. understanding how and why things have mass and some things dont have mass would be of monumental importance.

great book...he's a really good writer and uses humor to gloss over complex topics

wow I gotta get that book, sounds interesting!

[paradigm9]

it's a bit dated, but was the best physics book ive ever read. mainly just due to his sense of humor. he goes into some great anecdotes form grad school about cutting a hole in a multi million dollar particle accelerator to prove an idea.

the higgs may have been found just before cern shut down, but particle identification requires enough events to be statistically significant which they did not get, then independentaly verified. finding a sparticle, graviton or axion will be the next big thing to hunt for.

[Illusionist]

i dont understand how they would be able to differentiate between a new particle, or just "broken" off peice of another particle? Do particles break in this fashion? like, what if they think they have a new particle but its really just a chip off of a neutron?

[Z500]

I'm guessing if anything "chipped off" a neutron, it would be a quark. But then the neutron would probably stop being a neutron, too.

[Jesse]

As paradigm9 said, the author isn't actually talking about finding a single smallest particle which all other particles are made of--according to current theory, there are multiple fundamental particles, including quarks and electrons and photons (and according to string theory all these fundamental particles are just different vibrational states of fundamental strings). Rather, he's talking about finding something called the "Higgs boson" which according to most current theories of fundamental physics is responsible for giving all other particles their masses, but it has not yet been observed in particle accelerator experiments.

[youngalexander]

Like what are atoms made out of and what are those made out of and at one point you reach a particle that makes up everything?

It's interesting, never heard that before. Seeing as "smallness" is infinite (I can’t see why it’s not?), I don't see how there can be such a thing because there is always something infinitely smaller right? Then again maybe matter has a limit on how small it can be? I guess that particle can’t be cut in half?

~Blake
Some String theories would have it that there is a minimum radius (Planck length 10^-35m) around which the laws of physics are equivalent at reciprocal radii. That is, the laws are the same at R times the PL and at 1/10 times the PL.
See The Elegant Universe (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375708111/qid=1126062267/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-4693326-4508113?v=glance&s=books) by Brian Greene

[Emp-JohnIV]

Um, we actually know of smaller particles than atoms already, and have done so for decades. They are called elementary particles. Some examples of elementary particles are electrons, positrons and quarks. As far as I know these are the basic units of matter.
Positrons are only in antimater.

[youngalexander]

That is, the laws are the same at R times the PL and at 1/10 times the PL.
er, make that 'R times Planck length and 1/R times PL' :banghead:

[Sven]

Like what are atoms made out of and what are those made out of and at one point you reach a particle that makes up everything?

It's interesting, never heard that before. Seeing as "smallness" is infinite (I can’t see why it’s not?), I don't see how there can be such a thing because there is always something infinitely smaller right? Then again maybe matter has a limit on how small it can be?
It's rather that the macroscopic view of "size" of things looses its meaning at the quantum level.

I guess that particle can’t be cut in half?
Well, depends on what you mean by "particle" and "cutting" ;)

[Illusionist]

I dont quite understand the Higgs Boson? Its is the "thing" that gives everything mass, wouldnt this mean it is the smallest unit of matter?

[paradigm9]

in particle physics forces are mediated by particle exchanges. (just like seeing something with your eye is actually a particle, a photon, reflecting or being emitted from an object and being picked up by your eye.)

so the electromagnetic force is mediated by a particle...the photon. weak nuclear force is mediated by two particles, W and Z. these have already been found...the strong force is mediated by a particle called the gluon and has been seen. gravity= graviton not found yet and mass = higgs possibly seen but not verified.

remember that this is incredibly complex math that is being forced into common language so laymen can understand it better. the basic principle is that everything comes in discrete packets. even forces are transmitted in little packets...or partcles. the smallest thing there is hard to answer. electrons essentially have almost no size...they arent made up of anything (leptons).

string theory says the smallest thing is a vibrating loop of string, which is either open or closed. it is VERY small...unimaginably small even at the scale of atomic nuclei. vibration modes give us the different particles....

i would suggest reading "the particle zoo"...it gives a very elegant description of this.

[Illusionist]

so is string theory one explanation or theory of the Higgs Boson?

[paradigm9]

no...the higg's particle is part of gauge theory.

string theory is a theory of everything. a candidate for the grand unified theory..unfortunately some of the math needed to work with it hasnt been invented yet.

[Illusionist]

well, the "strings" arent supposed to be the smallest, indivisble unit of matter?

[Mr Average]

I just love this quote....

'Physicists are the atoms way of thinking about atoms'...

In Peace, Mr Average

[Illusionist]

In teh book, he says "when you think about it, why should particles have any mass at all?" I dont get this, because it seems quite obvious that if you have something, its got to have substance.

[Jesse]

In teh book, he says "when you think about it, why should particles have any mass at all?" I dont get this, because it seems quite obvious that if you have something, its got to have substance. What's "substance"? Do photons (which are massless) have it? Also, why should it be any more obvious that particles have mass than that they have charge? They are both just quantities associated with particles that determine how they behave in certain interactions with other particles according to certain rules, if the rules were different those particular quantities need not come into play at all.

[Schneibster]

Jesse is correct. Is light "something?" Does it "have substance?" What does it mean to be "something," and what specific characteristics does "something" have to have to "have substance?"

Light obviously is "something," in the most obvious sense of the word; yet, it has no mass. So if by "have substance," you mean "have mass," then clearly, you can have "something" that does not "have substance." Therefore, there must be "something else" that gives it mass, i.e. "substance," and that something is postulated by the book you are reading to be the Higgs particle, the "God particle" of the book's title.

[travc]

Actually, you don't have to have any "substance" to have something (which we might as well call a particle). The state of space-time may be able to take on different configurations in itself, and different configurations interact with each other in different ways. It is easiest to think about this concept in discrete space, but it is general.

Anyway, it is possible to imagine string theory (and several other candidate unification theories) as the "strings" actually comprising every possbile point in space (not things in space, but space itself). A bit mind bending, but fun and elegent. There really is nothing but different configurations of space-time. Addtional fun is that this makes information theory the fundamental science from which all others can (in theory) be derived, not physics.

[Schneibster]

Nice, trav. OK, Illusionist, there's three different ways of looking at it that might help you "get it" and enjoy the book more. Did any of them help?

[Preno]

I dont quite understand the Higgs Boson? Its is the "thing" that gives everything mass, wouldnt this mean it is the smallest unit of matter?According to your logic, if the photon is what gives everything electrical charge, wouldn't this mean it is the smallest unit of charge? Answer: no.

[Illusionist]

i guess i dont understand why there has to be something that gives particles their mass. How did people even think of this? How do we know particles dont naturally have mass, and that is that?

[Jesse]

i guess i dont understand why there has to be something that gives particles their mass. How did people even think of this? How do we know particles dont naturally have mass, and that is that? My guess would be that the idea emerges naturally out of quantum field theory somehow--I know the Higgs particle is a prediction of the Standard Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model) which deals with the electromagnetic force, the strong force, and the weak force, so maybe it wouldn't be possible to come up with a theory that makes the same predictions about those forces but which does not include a Higgs particle (this wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson) mentions that 'The Higgs mechanism is a physical phenomenon that is responsible for the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry', where the electroweak force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroweak) is what you get when the electromagnetic force and the weak force are unified at high energies). I'm pretty sure the idea of a particle that gives mass to other particles isn't just something they came up with out of the blue, at any rate.

[josephpalazzo]

Like what are atoms made out of and what are those made out of and at one point you reach a particle that makes up everything?

It's interesting, never heard that before. Seeing as "smallness" is infinite (I can’t see why it’s not?), I don't see how there can be such a thing because there is always something infinitely smaller right? Then again maybe matter has a limit on how small it can be? I guess that particle can’t be cut in half?

~Blake

Ever heard of String Theory???

[OdysseusTheInnkeeper]

It's rather that the macroscopic view of "size" of things looses its meaning at the quantum level. Size is an arbitrary anyway. Does the instantiation of a bit or some other analogue form of datum also fracture at sub-Planck scales?


Well, depends on what you mean by "particle" and "cutting" ;)
It depends on what you mean by "n" "d" and "a"...

[OdysseusTheInnkeeper]

According to your logic, if the photon is what gives everything electrical charge, wouldn't this mean it is the smallest unit of charge? Answer: no.Interesting; if photons mediate interactions between charged particles, but themselves are not electrically charged. Does this mean the "God particle" is not itself a particle with mass, but that which informs mass as a gravitational anologue of the photon? But I believe theory suggests otherwise.

[Craig]

How did people even think of this? How do we know particles dont naturally have mass, and that is that?

The same could be said about charge too, but it turns out "something" is causing it. It stands to reason that other properties of matter would also have "something" that gives them the said property.

Why investigate anything? Why not just accept that things fall to the ground, the sun revolves around the earth and the stars are fixed in the sky? Science is made up of some very nosy people that need to know these things. :)

I really enjoyed that book too.

[josephpalazzo]

My guess would be that the idea emerges naturally out of quantum field theory somehow--I know the Higgs particle is a prediction of the Standard Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model) which deals with the electromagnetic force, the strong force, and the weak force, so maybe it wouldn't be possible to come up with a theory that makes the same predictions about those forces but which does not include a Higgs particle (this wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson) mentions that 'The Higgs mechanism is a physical phenomenon that is responsible for the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry', where the electroweak force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroweak) is what you get when the electromagnetic force and the weak force are unified at high energies). I'm pretty sure the idea of a particle that gives mass to other particles isn't just something they came up with out of the blue, at any rate.


In 1966 Peter Higgs (University of Edinburgh) proposed that the universe was full of a field called a HIGGS FIELD. Disturbances in this field as particles move through it cause objects to have mass. From a a quantum point of view, we can only stir up the field in discrete units. The smallest possible disturbance is due to a HIGGS PARTICLE, or more precisely, a Higgs Boson. The field consists of countless Higgs Bosons that act like a kind of cosmic molasses that fills all of space. As objects move through space they have to 'wade' through these Higgs particles that 'cling' to them, causing a drag that shows up as mass.

[robto]

Lederman's is definately the funniest book ever written on particle physics.

Here's another book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0132366789/qid=1124202208/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3268145-0717547?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) that might help.